E-commerce marketplace Etsy agreed to buy UK-headquartered social commerce platform developer Depop, which counts consultancy group Lumar among its backers, for more than $1.62bn. The company had raised $100m by the time the acquisition was announced. Lumar had contributed to a $8.25m round in 2016.
Founded in 2011, Depop runs an online marketplace with 30 million registered users, 90% of whom are reportedly under 26 years of age. Users of the platform can buy and sell second-hand and new fashion items in addition to offering styling services. The company had generated $70m in revenue during 2020.
Depop is part of the broader e-commerce space, which has received much attention from corporate investors in recent years but exits from this space, as the GCV Analytics chart below illustrates, have been relatively stable in both number (up to 10-11 per annum) and total estimated dollars over recent years. E-commerce businesses, however, were given a substantial boost with the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, which is likely to translate into more exits, as public and M&A markets have been gathering momentum.
